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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Maybe

This post is an interstitial piece: it describes what happened between Side-By-Side where we meet Abraham and Sarah for the first time, and the next step for them in Hope . You may want to read both before you continue...but I hope the post will stand on its own if you'd rather not!

Photo courtesy of Pinterest

Agency cars were always the same: white, state seal on the side, a little worn, and they all had a weird smell Isabelle had never been able to figure out, despite the number of times she’d ridden in one.

“Hey girl! You ready for this?” Miss Angela was the happiest caseworker she’d had so far.

“Yep.”

And that pretty much took care of the conversation as far as Isabelle was concerned. She stared out of the window from the back seat of the car and watched the houses go by.

The houses moved by quickly, and it was easy to imagine that they were the ones moving, and she was sitting still. She played that game for a while, to entertain herself, imagining a world where the buildings moved and the cars stayed still.

She was only nine, but she’d made this ride six times…three that she remembered. The bag with all of her stuff sat beside her, just like it always did. The things inside had changed as she got older, but the only thing that changed about the bag was the name of the grocery store printed on it.

Maybe this trip would be different. Maybe this would be the last time she’d ride in the white car with four doors and a smell she couldn’t figure out. Maybe.

The brakes squealed a little when Miss Angela stopped in the driveway, and Isabelle added the noise to the list of things that bothered her about agency cars, along with the creepy screech the door made when it was opened.

Miss Angela was talking to her on the way up to the door, but Isabelle tuned her out. Maybe this was the last ride. Maybe.

This post is a response to a prompt from Write On Edge - to write about a journey, a car trip, in 300 words or less. I enjoyed going back to Abraham and Sarah's stories to tell Isabelle's story.

Thank you for taking the time to stop in and visit my little world, and as always, please let me know what you think in the comments!